Past success and convergent thinking in groups: The role of group‐focused attributions

Past success often causes groups to think narrowly around strategies that have worked in the past, even when environmental change has rendered these strategies ineffective. From a psychological perspective, this research seems to indicate that past success may give rise to convergent thinking in groups. Why might successful groups be prone to convergent thinking? I argue that the relationship between past success and convergent thinking may depend on the attributions that groups generate to explain their shared success. In this paper, I focus on two distinct attributions at the group level: Individual‐focused attributions that reflect the idiosyncratic characteristics of individual group members and group‐focused attributions that reflect the emergent properties of the group as a whole. I found that group‐focused attributions for past success cause groups to generate fewer ideas that are, on average, more convergent. In contrast, individual‐focused attributions cause groups to generate more ideas that are on average more divergent. These findings suggest that the experience of success may actually stimulate divergent thinking depending on how a group chooses to explain it. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Early information processing among infants with and without spina bifida

This study focuses on the development of early visual information processing among infants with spina bifida (SB) compared to typically developing infants using the habituation–dishabituation paradigm. Analyses were conducted in two stages. First infants were evaluated to determine if 18-month old infants (SB = 47; Control = 40) differed in their ability to shift attention and habituate to two female faces, as well as their responses to composite and novel stimuli. Second, relations between these variables and infant motor and mental functioning were evaluated. The results of the study indicated that difficulties with visual attention skills can be detected as early as 18 months of age among infants with SB. Infants with SB differed significantly from controls on attention getting. Although there were no differences found on habituation and composite tasks, infants with SB differed significantly from controls on their ability to dishabituate. Implications are discussed.     

MICRO-Foundations in Strategic Management: Squaring Coleman’s Diagram

Abell, Felin and Foss argue that “macro-explanations” in strategic management, explanations in which organizational routines figure prominently and in which both the explanandum and explanans are at the macro-level, are necessarily incomplete. They take a diagram (which has the form of a trapezoid) from Coleman, Foundations of Social Theory, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.)/London, (1990) to task to show that causal chains connecting two macro-phenomena always involve “macro-to-micro” and “micro-to-macro” links, links that macro-explanations allegedly fail to recognize. Their plea for micro-foundations in strategic management is meant to shed light on these “missing links”. The paper argues that while there are good reasons for providing micro-foundations, Abell, Felin and Foss’s causal incompleteness argument is not one of them. Their argument does not sufficiently distinguish between causal and constitutive relations. Once these relations are carefully distinguished, it follows that Coleman’s diagram has to be squared. This in turn allows us to see that macro-explanations need not be incomplete.     

Origins of adolescents’ autobiographical memories

Adolescents (N = 46; M = 12.46 years) who had previously participated in a longitudinal study of autobiographical memory development narrated their early childhood memories, interpreted life events, and completed a family history questionnaire and language assessment. Three distinct components of adolescent memory emerged: (1) age of earliest memory and insight into life events; (2) volume of early memories; and (3) density of specific memories from early childhood. Children's language, self-awareness, and theory of mind during early childhood (19–51 months) all contributed to their memories as adolescents. However, adolescents’ early reminiscing environment was the best single predictor of the age and volume of their early memories and their insight into life events. In contrast, adolescents’ delayed self-recognition and reminiscing in early childhood predicted the density of their early memories. These findings provide partial support for theories of autobiographical memory development.     

Millennials’ (Lack of) Attitude Problem: An Empirical Examination of Generational Effects on Work Attitudes

Purpose  

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the sparse empirical literature on generational differences at work by examining (1) the effect of generation on work attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, job security, and turnover intentions) and (2) how Millennials’ work attitudes differ from prior generations.     

Distinguishing rumination from worry in clinical insomnia

Research has found that repetitive thought processes, such as worry and rumination, play an important role in several disorders; however, these cognitive processes have not yet been examined in insomnia. This study explores rumination and worry in insomnia by examining: 1) whether those high and low on rumination and worry differ on subjective sleep measures, and 2) whether rumination and worry are distinct processes in insomnia. Participants (N = 242) were diagnosed with an insomnia disorder by sleep experts. Participants completed measures of worry and rumination and maintained a 2-week daily sleep log. Results of a multivariate analysis of variance found no main effect of worry; although high and low ruminators differed on several sleep log indices, including sleep efficiency, wakefulness after sleep onset and sleep quality. Factor analysis supported the idea that rumination and worry are separate constructs. Whereas previous research has focused on worry in insomnia, these findings suggest that rumination is important for understanding sleep disturbance. Further, although rumination and worry are both repetitive thought processes, these results indicate that they are distinct processes within insomnia and should be treated as such. The results are discussed with respect to treatment implications for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia.     

A penny for your thoughts: Patterns of sleep-related beliefs, insomnia symptoms and treatment outcome

The aim of this study was to determine how distinctive patterns of unhelpful beliefs about sleep endorsed by insomnia patients relate to their presenting symptoms and treatment responses. A sample of 281 primary insomnia sufferers completed items comprising the Dysfunctional Beliefs About Sleep scale (DBAS-16). Their resultant scores on the four DBAS-16 subscales were then subjected to a cluster analysis, which resulted in the identification of four distinctive age-matched subgroups. Two subgroups were characterized by pathologically elevated scores on at least two of the DBAS-16 subscales, whereas the other two subgroups had subscale scores that closely resembled those of a normative sample. Subsequent comparisons showed the insomnia subgroups differed in regard to their insomnia severity, use of prescribed medication for sleep, depression and anxiety symptoms, and daytime sleepiness. Furthermore, comparisons of treatment outcomes (i.e. analysis of change scores and normative comparisons) across clusters showed that the subgroups did not benefit equally from a standardized form of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for insomnia. Findings demonstrate the contribution of specific sleep-related beliefs on presenting insomnia symptoms and suggest the potential usefulness of tailoring CBT protocols to match the needs of distinctive insomnia subtypes.     

Integrated,Family‐based,Partial Hospital Treatment for Complex Pediatric Illness

This paper describes a unique treatment program for complex pediatric illness. The Hasbro Children's Partial Hospital Program uses a family systems orientation, integrated care, and a partial hospital setting to treat children with a wide range of pediatric illnesses that have failed outpatient and inpatient treatments. We have treated more than 2000 children with at least 80 different ICD‐9 diagnoses. The multidisciplinary treatment team functions as a meta‐family for children and their families who present with illness and family beliefs that impede successful outcomes with standard care. The three features: family systems orientation, integrated care, and partial hospital setting, hopefully interact to create an environment that helps families expand and modify their explanatory models regarding participating in effective medical care. The goal of treatment is for both children and their parents to feel empowered to take control of the illness. Parents completing standardized measures at intake describe their children and families as experiencing significant emotional distress, low levels of general family functioning, and poor quality of life. Although the children are described as having distinct behavioral differences, the families are described as responding to the experience of a seriously ill child in similar ways. A treatment program that addresses the noncategorical aspects of how families respond to illness while addressing the specific diseases of the children can allow children and their families to respond favorably to treatment.     

Meaning making,self‐determination theory,and the question of wisdom in personality

Self‐determination theory (SDT) has advanced the most comprehensive model of motives for human flourishing in the field of personality psychology and beyond. In this article, we evaluate SDT relative to the process of meaning making, particularly from a narrative perspective, showing what SDT can and cannot explain about the construction of self‐identity and its relation to human flourishing. On the one hand, SDT explains how subjective assessments of need fulfillment drive the process of self‐determined living. The internal motives that follow such fulfillment serve as important themes in people's life stories that predict several markers of hedonic and eudaimonic well‐being. On the other hand, SDT's focus on subjective fulfillment limits what SDT can explain about how wisdom, which is a canonical good of both eudaimonia and meaning making, helps people make sense of life's more difficult or unfulfilling events. SDT may facilitate a facet of wisdom that is more subjective and experiential but not the critical facet of wisdom defined by objectively more complex structures of interpretation.